


the burden of unknowing

by anthropologicalhands



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Sakura finds out about the uchiha massacre, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:19:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2636084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropologicalhands/pseuds/anthropologicalhands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unexpectedly, Sakura joins Sasuke on his travels. There is something weighing on her. He will wait until she's ready to tell him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the burden of unknowing

**Author's Note:**

> On the one hand, I’m so grateful that Naruto had such a happy ending. It is far beyond what I expected. On the other hand, I will be forever grumbling about how badly Sakura’s character was shafted. Especially about whether she ever found out the truth of the Uchiha massacre.

Less than six months into his wanderings, Sasuke meets Sakura again, in a small teahouse where the borders between lands are still blurred.

He does not know that it is her, at first. The teahouse is mostly empty when he enters; the only other patron sits in the back of the room. The size and shape is vaguely female, clad in gray, the hood of her cloak pulled down to hide her face. There is a tray for two on her table.

The few locks of pink hair that spill over her front clasp, however, gives him pause. Instead of following the waitress to his table, he looks closer.

At first, the woman does not seem to give notice of his interest. But then her chin tips up, and the corner of her mouth curls into a very familiar smirk, so much so that he doesn’t wait to see the green of her eyes before he is crossing the room, ignoring the waitress’s entreaty, towards her.

“Hello, Sasuke-kun,” she greets him as he sits across from her, lifting the kettle by her elbow and filling the second cup. He takes it, not yet lifting it to his lips, the heat of it warming his hand.

“Sakura,” he says in greeting, because it’s a habit and because her smile always grows a little wider, and if that isn’t doing some good in the world he doesn’t know what will. “What are you doing here? I thought you would still be rebuilding in Konoha. Did Kakashi send you? Is Naruto here?”

He doesn’t miss the way her eyes tighten, or her smile grows a little more forced at the mention of their team. Up close, she looks tired, with dark smudges under her eyes.

“I’m alone. They don’t need me in Konoha right now.” She hunches further over her tea. “Other areas have suffered worse losses with fewer resources, so I thought that I might be more useful there. You know; train a few people to serve as medics, make sure the sick and injured have somewhere to rest, help restock medicines.”

That is true, but it is not the truth.

“Sakura…”

“Sasuke-kun, please don’t.” Her eyes are dry, but he knows the signs of tears threatening to come. He has caused them often enough. “I’ll tell you, but not now. Please.”

He could push her. Demand to hear what she isn’t saying. She would tell him, eventually.

“I won’t ask,” he says instead. Things have always been so muddled between them, and he’s determined that such a state should not last. “Where do you need to go first?”

The tension within her lessens, though it does not abate, and her smile grows gentle again. Tentatively, Sasuke smiles back.

\--

She never mentions how she found him, and Sasuke doesn’t question it, and when they leave the teahouse together, he doesn’t object. Redemption for his sins can wait for now.

Sakura’s list of villages is as long as her arm. They are clustered by battle sites, sometimes without hospitals or even tents. People might not be dying from their injuries as much as from infections or lack of medicines.

Sakura throws herself into her work as soon as she sees them, issuing orders, asking for bandages, chakra glowing green around her hands. She works herself to the bone, but there is almost something like relief when she does it, so Sasuke doesn’t speak up, simply prods her to eat and sleep at decent intervals. They share their rooms because it is convenient, because they trust each other.

There is little work a one-armed man can do, in terms of gathering supplies or rebuilding walls. But he manages, running messages back and forth; assisting Sakura with her patients should she request it, and any odd jobs that need doing but are being neglected in favor of more pressing concerns.

Every time, the people first look upon him with suspicion and fear, at his Rinnegan and his sword. But the days pass, he proves himself dependable, and before long where pathways were cleared, he is greeted, if not by name, with a curt nod or maybe a smile. It is not the sort of smiles Sakura gets, bright and hopeful and g _rateful_ , but it is better than he ever could have expected.

It is good practice, he thinks, for returning home.

\--

They spend about a fortnight at each village before departing.

Within village walls, Sakura is single-minded in her focus. She expends chakra, talks of nothing but bandages and poultices and medicines.

On the road, she is nearly silent. Sometimes, it is companionable, as they walk side by side on the road.

Other times, it is not. Something heavy hangs over her—and the way she keeps glancing at him suggests an unanswered question. It gnaws at him—what is left for them to say to each other? What has he forgotten?

Is it his apology? Has she decided that it is not enough?

That is a line of thought he dismisses quickly. They have spent too much effort clearing the air to let something like this linger on.

No…if this has something to do with him, it is not _only_ with him.

He can wait.

\--

The third village has come and gone and they are on the road again before Sakura finally asks him, in their room at a roadside inn two days away from their next destination.

Sasuke looks up and sees her sitting on the edge of her bed, hands on her knees, looking directly at him. She has not yet changed into her bedclothes. Her voice is carefully modulated, but her knuckles are white and there will be red marks on her skin whenever she releases her knees.

“When were you going to tell me about the Uchiha massacre?” she asks.

He pauses in his work, startled.

“Why would I?” The words are out of his mouth before he can even truly consider them.

It was not something he ever brought up, because he believed it to be already well-known.

An erroneous conclusion, if Sakura’s expression is anything to go by.

Her face, so carefully composed, abruptly crumples.

Something cold settles in his stomach as he realizes his mistake, and chills creep up his spine as he understands the implications. All this time, she believed that his goal was Itachi. After his brother’s death, when he hadn’t returned to Konoha and she heard that he joined Obito—

_What had she thought of him?_

“Shit,” he mutters to him, tossing his scroll on the bed. He goes to her, kneels down so that he can see her face, even with her head bowed.

“Sakura,” he whispers, once, twice, three times. She can push him away here; it would be within her right. But this was a mistake; he did not intend to ever be anything but honest with her—

“I assumed it was common knowledge.”

In the Land of Iron, he thought she _knew_. Through the haze in his head, he believed that she was punishing him for his righteous vengeance, where she would have once followed him, and it had only made him angrier.

_What has he done?_

“Sakura, _please_.”

When he reaches for her hand, he overbalances, forgetting his arm. Without delay, her hands reach out to steady him. He looks, and sees her gazing at him. Her right hand supports him still—her left hand reaches for his own, and interlaces their fingers.

There are tears rolling down her face, but she is smiling, even though it is wobbly and frail.

That gives him hope.

“Sit on the bed,” she says, her voice rough, but a playful note slipping through. “I told you to wait for the prosthetic.”

He does as she says, but does not relinquish his grasp on her hand. Nor does she seem inclined to withdraw it from him.

“When did you find out?” he asks, once settled back on the bed.

Sakura hiccups. He waits while her breath slows, while she calms herself so that she can speak again.

“Not long after you left,” she says, her voice unsteady but clear. “Kakashi-sensei and Naruto, they were talking about it in the Hokage’s office. Something about exonerating the records. I-I asked them what they were talking about. The look on their faces—”

She breaks off abruptly, and laughs. It is not her usual laugh—it is rough, has edges. Sasuke suppresses a shudder.

“They completely _forgot_ they hadn’t told me.” Her voice is heavy with scorn. “ _Shikamaru_ knew before I did. They didn’t even have a good reason .They said they wanted to protect me.”

Sasuke is silent. He understands their desire, but not their actions.

Sakura is still talking.

“I’m not weak. I was once, but I’m not anymore. I haven’t been useless in years. But they still treat me like a little girl. They didn’t think it was important enough to tell me why you were acting like that.” Her voice breaks. “I thought you were turning into a monster. I wanted to _kill_ you.”

She’s crying again.

“It was too much. I wasn’t trusted to bring you back, I wasn’t trusted to fight on my own merits—you threw me into that genjutsu—”

He grimaces. She sighs.

“At least with the genjutsu I can console myself with the fact you didn’t want me to interfere, not that you thought I was weak. They have no excuse. I was _so angry_ with them. I tried not to think about it, to go on with my work, because it was _good work_. But every time I saw them, all I could think was that even after everything I’ve shown that I can do…”

She trails off and shrugs, listlessly.

“They still think I need protection.”

She laughs again, still jagged.

“So you left?” Sasuke prompts. So that is the weight crushing her shoulders—embarrassment and shame and humiliation. Uncertainty at her worth.

She nods. “These visits are important, but any competent medic can do them. At best, there is some extra goodwill because I am Tsunade’s student. But I couldn’t stay—I could barely look at Kakashi-sensei when I requested this mission.”

“And Naruto?”

She sighs. “He kept apologizing. Said a lot of things and meant every word. But I got tired of hearing it.”

“I’ll forgive him eventually,” she adds, catching his eye and turning to face him again. Her thumb brushes absently over his knuckles. “I don’t plan on holding this against either of them. There’s no point. But I need space, I need to—”

“Prove yourself?”

She flinches at that, but does not break his gaze. “Something like that,” she agrees. “I’m a damn good medic. I may not be a legend, or from a specialized clan, but I’m as much the best at what I do as you or Naruto. I am the student of the Fifth Hokage. Hell, I still outrank both of you.”

Sasuke allows himself to smile at the jab. She returns it, cheeks flushing.

She continues, “I just need to remind myself that I’m not useless.”

“No one would say that.”

“You did, once.” She reminds him.

“Well, you were,” says Sasuke, unrepentant. “And then you got better.”

Sakura winces, but she’s still smiling, so Sasuke hasn’t completely screwed this up.

“Same old Sasuke-kun,” she says, shaking her head. “Blunt as ever.”

But she is no longer curled so tightly into herself, and she is smiling at him with something like hope.

He knows what he has to say, and it is only the truth.

“I would like to say that I would not have kept secrets from you,” he says, carefully. “But I was not in my right mind, that time on the bridge.”

“Batshit crazy, you mean?”

That she can jest about his actions should be uplifting; it means that they can move beyond it. The very memory remains one of his worst, the moment when he was at his lowest. That he could have hurt Sakura that he could have _killed_ her — he would have been beyond redemption.

“Regardless,” he says. “Going forward, I have nothing to hide from you. It has never been my intention to give you anything less than the truth, and it never will be.”

At long last, the tension leaves her shoulders, and she sits up with her back straight, her head high. There is something special in the corner of her smile.

“Thank you, Sasuke-kun.” She leans forward, hesitates, and goes to kiss his cheek. Sasuke turns his head, not away, but towards her. Looks at her lips, feels his phantom hand stroking the curve of her cheek, the curling ends of her fringe.

She pauses, lips curling into the gentlest of smiles, and angles her head meets him halfway. 


End file.
